It’s nice to see that the Mountain Fever label is behind Virginia-based bluegrass vocalist Linda Lay, and this is her debut solo album. However, she has decades of performing experience that started with her family band and performing with guitar at the Carter Family Fold. She mastered autoharp, then formed (and played bass) with innovative bluegrass band, Appalachian Trail, for over 20 years. In 2000, Linda toured with the “Masters of the Steel String Guitar,” and in 2003, she recorded a solo project for the Cracker Barrel record label and then another with guitarist husband David Lay, banjo-player Tom Adams and mandolinist David McLaughlin in a group called Springfield Exit. In 2004, Linda and David Lay reorganized Appalachian Trail with several new members.

For her 2022 album, Linda is joined by David Lay (guitar), Bryan McDowell (fiddle), Darren Beachley (Dobro), Nick Falk (percussion), Sammy Shelor (banjo) and the album’s co-producer/engineer Aaron Ramsey (mandolin, guitar, Weissenborn guitar). David, Darren and Aaron provide harmonies to Linda’s lead vocals.

While I would’ve preferred at least a dozen songs on the album, the ten they’ve arranged present a particularly potent vision for their contemporary bluegrass built around Linda’s stylish, powerhouse vocals. She taps lyrically intimate and melodically compelling material from the likes of Kieran Kane, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Townes Van Zandt, as well as highly-acclaimed bluegrass writers Mark “Brink” Brinkman and Tim Stafford.

Opening with a Ted Harris song that Charley Pride made famous, Linda sings with high-spirited feeling, “It's the happiness of having you that makes my world a place worth living in.” “The Mountain” is a plainspoken story of home. “Lightning,” “White Line” and “Blue, Blueridge Mountain Girl” have plenty of bluegrass energy, while “Lost in the Shuffle” is a classic country scorcher. Her grassified treatment of Blondie’s “Standing in My Way” is an interpretive twist as she assertively sings, “Too many people tell me what to do, what to think, and say. Now it's time for me to do what I want. You better get out of my way. I'm moving out, getting out of here.”

Written by Mark Brinkman and Mike Evans, “The Jingle Hole” is an eerie song based on a true, little known, tale from the American Civil War about a deep, vertical cave opening near Bristol, Tn. Because of the amount of fighting and bloodshed there, the region became known as “The Bloody Third.” Locals started calling the cave opening “The Jingle Hole” when prisoners were tortured by being directed to hang from an iron bar over the bottomless pit. As a soldier’s spurs would jangle against each other, the sound gave the cave opening its gruesome name. Throughout Linda Lay’s radio-friendly set, albeit a bit short, strong vocalizing and playing give listeners something to grab on to and leave us wanting more. (Joe Ross, Roots Music Report)